


Once Upon a Time

by Drag0nst0rm



Series: Heart to Heart [12]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Characters Return from the Dead, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, In Which the Prophecies were Actually Fulfilled, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:03:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9806408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: In which Arthur is not the princess of the story for once, curses stubbornly insist on their exact terms being met, and happy endings are relative.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Merlin.
> 
> This one is kind of cheating since the pairing is there and is crucial to the plot, but it's not the relationship I focus the most on.

_Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a castle. And in that castle -_

 

Arthur didn't bother knocking on the door to Merlin's tower. If Merlin hadn't knocked all those years he'd been Arthur's manservant, Arthur wasn't going to knock on his door now that he was Arthur's Court Sorcerer. Especially not if he insisted on living at the top of all those stairs. Arthur wasn't as young as he used to be, even if he'd rather dance on the Round Table than admit it to Merlin.

The door banged open. For once, there were no complaints from the tower's occupant. Arthur frowned and started winding his way through the labyrinth of experiments and books. "Merlin? Merlin! You haven't fallen asleep over your books again, have you? You know what happened last time." Namely, Merlin had provided an excellent example for why one should never fall asleep over a book that contained magic. Arthur had successfully used that incident to get Merlin to stop bringing up the donkey ears.

He rounded a table and finally saw Merlin.

Merlin, who was lying on the floor, with a smashed cup beside him.

"Merlin!"

 

_A great curse was laid, but not one of death._

 

Merlin had still been breathing. Was still breathing now, Arthur reminded himself fiercely, as he paced outside the physician's quarters. Merlin was fine. He would be on his feet any minute now. There was no need to worry Gwen or the knights, because Merlin would be just fine.

Galahad, the physician these past twenty years, opened the door. His face was drawn.

Arthur froze. "He's not - "

"He's alive," Galahad assured him. "But, sire - You'd better come in and sit down."

His mouth pressed into a thin line, Arthur did so. "Well?"

"It's a sleeping curse," Galahad told him. "Only his true love's kiss can wake him."

"Now who's the princess?" Arthur muttered. The silence that followed the question grated, so he continued quickly. "And who's that? I didn't think he was seeing anyone."

Galahad's expression told him he wasn't going to like whatever came next. "I cast a spell to find out."

"And?" Arthur didn't care if he had to send the knights on a quest to find some girl Merlin'd only seen in visions or if they had to drag in Morgana herself. Anything to break the curse.

Galahad winced. "She's dead."

The words were like a physical blow, but Arthur was used to recovering from those. "Then there has to be another way," Arthur said stubbornly. "There has to be."

"Maybe he could have found one," Galahad said wearily, "but I can't."

Arthur felt an increasing need to throw something. "How long - How long can he stay like this?"

Galahad shrugged. "Indefinitely. His magic will keep him alive."

Arthur nodded. "Good. That gives us time."

"Time, sire?"

"Find out who cast the curse," he said grimly as he stood. "Maybe it'll break when they're dead."

 

_A place was prepared until such time as the curse would be broken._

 

He wasn't the only one who came here, Arthur knew. All of them who missed Merlin did. 

But they were careful not to run into each other. It made it easier.

"We've news on Morgana's movements," he told Merlin. "I've sent out a patrol of our best knights and sorcerers. We'll get her soon, and then you can stop lazing about and get back to your actual duties."

The quiet sound of breathing was the only response.

"You could at least snore," he told him. "Let us know you're still in there." He leaned back in the chair. "The council's been trying to get me to put someone else on your job, you know. Aren't you going to wake up so I don't replace you with some young magician who had a proper apprenticeship instead of whatever ragtag thing you had?"

He kept rambling on for a while. He tried to imagine Merlin's replies, but Merlin had always managed to take him by surprise, even after all these years. He could never be sure he was imagining right.

"I wonder what she was like," he said at last. "That girl you loved. She must have been something to put up with you. I would have liked to have met her, you know. Was she the one you ran off to meet when Gwen was cursed?"

Arthur had come up with a thousand different stories for the girl. Merlin was going to have some explaining to do when he woke up.

At last, he had to go. "Council meeting, you know," he told Merlin. "They've gotten far duller without you there. I'm sure they'll be at me to fill you seat again, but don't worry. I'm saving it for you. If I have to suffer through them, you do too."

Arthur left.

The patrol came back empty handed.

Arthur sent out another one.

 

_But the spell would not be broken until the time was fulfilled._

 

Arthur stood at Camlann field and looked down at the body that lay at his feet. 

She was dead. Morgana was dead.

That was the only thought he could hold onto at the moment. All the others were flowing out with the blood that kept seeping out from his chest, no matter how hard he pressed on it.

He started to fall.

"Arthur!" Gwaine caught him and lowered him to the ground. "Hang on, mate, hang on, Galahad's coming - "

Had to hang on. Merlin would be waking up. Had to hang on till Merlin got here, but Gwaine was still babbling about other things. "Merlin," he tried to say, but the word didn't come out quite right.

Gwaine grasped it instantly. "Merlin. That's right. He must be on his way, just hang on, hang on - "

Merlin would come, he knew. He just had to keep his eyes open and wait.

When they laid the body on the Isle, his chest was still, but his eyes were still wide open.

 

_The spell held its victim frozen till the years were all complete._

 

The news from the battlefield wasn't good. The one hope Gwen had taken from it, that with Morgana's death, Merlin would rise, was quickly shattered.

Merlin dreamed on.

And without Merlin and without the men they had lost at Camlann, there was no way they could fight off the coming horde.

She had the sorcerers who could teleport take out all the women and children that they could. She stayed behind to fight for her city. When the sorcerers came for her, she shook her head.

"Take Merlin," she ordered.

It had been prophesied, after all, that they would rise again when Albion's need was greatest. The prophecy was not particularly specific about who exactly would be included in that number, but if the girl had been important enough to Merlin that he wouldn't wake without her, than she would be important enough for destiny.

Gwen refused to think otherwise.

 

_So the long years passed, and the story was forgotten._

 

Merlin lay in the cave where his last caretakers had hidden him. The mouth of it had been blocked by rubble. The crystals glinted all around him, the visions in them dancing.

Merlin slept on.

 

_Until true love's kiss broke the spell._

 

Merlin's dreams had been cruel at first, but then the dark weight that had been pressing him had vanished, and they had turned sweeter. He wasn't surprised to see Freya in one of them.

"Merlin," she breathed, smiling. "I'd almost given up hope that I would be allowed to see you again."

Something about this dream felt different. He frowned. "Allowed?"

"It wasn't time yet," she told him regretfully. "But it is now. It's time for you to wake up."

"But I want to stay here with you," he protested.

"After this life," she promised. "But you have to help Arthur save Albion again first."

Arthur. He had to help Arthur. "Can't you come too?" he asked wistfully.

She shook her head. "It's not my destiny." 

Then she kissed him.

And Merlin woke up.

 

_And so the curse was broken._

 

"So where's your girl?" Arthur asked after the first of the reunion was over. "The one that woke you up?"

Merlin's eyes went distant. "She's waiting," he said.

And Arthur didn't understand, not entirely, but he said, "Tell me about her?"

So Merlin did.

 

_And they all lived_ mostly _happily for_ a rather long time _after._

 

And when the time came, they died and existed happily for forever after that.

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: Tomorrow, there is a chance that I will write a lengthy romantic Merlin fanfiction that is my best yet and puts all my others to bitter, bitter shame.
> 
> Since I will be busy from approximately 6:00 AM to approximately 8:00 PM and will be mentally exhausted by then, I wouldn't count on it.
> 
> If I manage the former, I'll post it. If I don't, I will try to at least post one of the gen pieces I've got prewritten and waiting. It won't be part of this series, but it'll be Merlin fanfiction, and hopefully that's the part you really care about.


End file.
